Irate Passenger Causes Panic On Air Nigeria Flight To Sokoto
•Forces Aircraft To Return To Abuja
By Abel Orukpe, Correspondent, Lagos
An irate passenger on Air Nigeria flight VK041 bound for Sokoto on Monday caused panic among the passengers who were on board, a situation which forced the aircraft to return to Abuja. where the flight originated from.
The male passenger, our correspondent learnt, was screaming that he should be allowed to alight from the aircraft immediately.
Our correspondent gathered that the aircraft was taxiing to take off when the enraged passenger became restive and began to scream that he wanted to alight from the aircraft and that efforts by air hostesses on board the aircraft to calm him down proved abortive.
The pilot was said to have taken the aircraft to Abuja, where the passenger was handed over to the security agents at the Abuja airport.
Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Demuren, who was playing host to the World Bank Supervision Mission to Nigeria at the Aviation House, confirmed the incident, adding that the airline followed the rule as spelt out in the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Said he: “I am happy that the airline has got standard operating procedure; SOP must be followed and I am happy the airline did the right thing. They tried to calm the passenger down but he became restive and what did they do? They felt that they could not continue with the passenger on the trip. After everything was sorted out, the aircraft returned to base. It was Virgin Nigeria.”
He added that since safety was paramount in air transport, the NCAA and other security agencies had to track the passenger’s baggage to ensure that nothing was dropped in the aircraft.
“I was very happy the way it was handled. The aircraft was almost taxiing off and immediately it returned to base and security operatives moved to place and took the passenger.”
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http://www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=15359
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